BRIEF DOSSIER FOR GUIDED TOUR WALKING TOURS IN PAU. The Pilgrims Way

Transcription

1 BRIEF DOSSIER FOR GUIDED TOUR WALKING TOURS IN PAU The Pilgrims Way

2 Lenght of tour: 2h. Meeting point: Church square INTRODUCTIÓN The original name of Pau was Villa Pavo or Villa Paulus, which referred to the Latin pallus or marshes. The oldest document that mentions Pau is from the year 982 and explains that it was a small village founded by the Sant Pere de Rodes monastery itself. The church you see here is dedicated to St. Martin, a Romanesque building from the eleventh century. While the church has persisted and even seen later remodelling, there are practically no remains of the castle or the town walls. There are three important pilgrim routes in the Christian world: the one to Santiago de Compostela (Road to Santiago), known as St. James Way where it passes through Catalonia, the route to Rome and the one to Jerusalem. Pilgrim routes served for penitence, as pilgrims received indulgence for their sins upon arrival at their destination. Especially in medieval times, pilgrim routes were very busy with people coming from all over the known world and therefore there were many different branches leading towards the destination. But pilgrim routes also represented much more: they were an significant economic return for all the places they passed through thanks to the expenses made by the travellers. So, welcome to Pau, stopover for pilgrims who came from or went to Sant Pere de Rodes and here we start our own pilgrims way towards the White Cross, a landmark of legends and surprises.

3 1st STOP: THE WHITE CROSS TRAIL The trail that leads to the White Cross starts at the centre of Pau and climbs northward up the mountain, passing through beautiful landscapes and offering a panoramic view of most of the Empordà plain with the sea in the background. The White Cross trail was a droveway on which people and livestock made their way to the Sant Pere de Rodes monastery. At some points one can still see the simple pavement and the dry stone walls on its sides that protected it from the erosion of the margins. This is a pretty wide trail on which we will find several interesting heritage elements such as a cork oak grove, some megalithic tombs and dry stone constructions so typical of the region.

4 2nd STOP: THE ROLE OF THE TEMPLARS (cork oak grove) The order of Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, also known as the Knights Templar or Templars, was founded in Jerusalem in 1119 by the French knight Hugues de Payens, originally from the French Champagne. Templars followed the Cistercian rule but also included proposition to protect all Christian pilgrims who visited sacred shrines. The Templars established themselves in Catalonia in 1131 by permission and under the protection of the Count of Barcelona, Ramon Berenguer III, and only a few years later they already had built many quarters, temples and castles all over the Catalan territory.

5 3rd STOP: PILGRIMS IN THE MIDDLE AGES (hiking up the trail) Out of devotion or seeking redemption for their sinful acts, pilgrims followseda route or made a journey towards a sacred shrine in search of spiritual reward. There are three pilgrimage routes in the Christian tradition: Rome, Jerusalem and Santiago de Compostela. In the beginning and until the fourteenth century, it was common to see pilgrims walking barefoot and dressed like the very apostle James: a tunic held by a rope, a cane and a wide-brimmed hat. A scallop shell, symbol of the St. James Way, often was attached to the tunic or the hat. The Way to and devotion for Santiago de Compostela is by far the most popular of the three routes, although there is no scientific nor historic evidence that proves that the apostle James indeed was buried here. There also is no record of the Apostle ever came to Spain to evangelise its population. At the same time, the image of St. James as a soldier against the heathens originated many legends that linked the Apostle to the kings of Castile, Cantabria, the Franks such as Charlemagne himself- as their protector and servant. St. James is the patron saint of Spain. Teodomir at the Apostle Santiago s tomb.

6 4th STOP: VIEW OVER THE COUNTY OF EMPÚRIES (From the Rodes mountain range) In the first half of the ninth century, Charlemagne defined the southern border of his kingdom at the Llobregat river and organised the territories as a buffer zone into Counties which together formed the Spanish March (Marca Hispànica). When Charlemagne died, and after his son, his kingdom was divided between his three grandsons, and Hugh Capet became king of Septimania and of the territories of the Spanish March. When the Count of Barcelona, Borrell II, asked King Hugh for logistic assistance against the Moors and was denied, the Catalan Counts decided to break their pact of vassalage with the king and declared their independence: In 998, Catalonia became an independent nation formed by the Counties of the Spanish March. The County of Empúries, with its first capital Sant Martí d Empúries, occupied the territory from the coast of today s Upper and Lower Empordà, to the Pyrenees in the North and today s national road N-II, following the ancient Roman road Via Augusta, in the West. During the tenth century, the capital was progressively moved to Castelló d Empúries where we can see the great tower of the St. Mary Basilica, cathedral of the Empordà.

7 5th STOP: DRY STONE STRUCTURES The dry stone technique was used to build farmhouses, public buildings, walls and retaining walls for terracing. This is one of the most simple and easy construction techniques which only needs one essential material: stone. All cultures present on the Iberian peninsula have used dry stone techniques but it became more generalised in Catalonia in the Early Middle Ages and reached its peak of splendour in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as a result of the end of the Ancien Régime: uncultivated lands were occupied after the confiscations of Ecclesiastical property but feudal property rights continued in the rising of the liberal and capitalist state. Another key factor was the demographic augment since the beginning of the nineteenth century and during the Industrial Revolution, which increased the demand for farm products. At the beginning, farmers themselves built the dry stone structures but with the confiscations of lands, in the nineteenth century, hiring professional builders became more common.

8 6th STOP: THE ST. JAMES WAY AND THE SANT PERE DE RODES MONASTERY The Road to Santiago is known as St. James Way (Camí de Sant Jaume) for its branches that lead through Catalonia. Pilgrims could choose from many different itineraries to reach Compostela in the Middle Ages. The most common route to reach the Iberian peninsula was through Roncesvalles or Somport and to arrive in Galicia via Castile and Leon. But there was also the option to arrive over passes through the Catalan Pyrenees. There were also many pilgrim from the eastern Mediterranean who arrived in Catalonia by sea at the harbours of Roses, Barcelona or Tarragona. Many pilgrims took the opportunity of their travels to visit other popular monasteries that lay on there way, where a popular relic or a religious icon was venerated. There was no single defined St. James Way in Catalonia. Pilgrims used the same routes as merchants, messengers and other travellers: routes that led to harbours and significant cities, to popular fairs, markets and shrines. Sant Pere de Rodes was the second most important pilgrimage site on the Iberian peninsula, after Santiago de Compostela. According to a privilege granted by Pope Urban II, pilgrims who arrived here obtained the same indulgences as those that visited the tombs of Peter and Paul in Rome and that is why it became such an important destiny for pilgrims. Bíblia de Sant Pere de Rodes

9 7th STOP: THE WHITE CROSSE The White Cross trail was a droveway on which people, livestock and merchandise made their way to the Sant Pere de Rodes monastery. The White Cross is a wayside cross from the fifteenth century that alerted travellers that they were about to enter or leave the domains of the Sant Pere Abbey. Close to the monument of the White Cross we find three crosses carved into a rock. Some of these could have served as landmarks to guide pilgrims towards the monastery. The cross itself is made from limestone, painted white and placed on a simple cylindrical pillar built with uncut stones from the area and bound with lime mortar. A niche was made at the pillar to place sacred images or offerings. A Latin engraving on the cross reads IHS NAZAREN REX IUDEOR, referring to Jesus of Nazareth. There are several legends related to the cross, the most common one explains that it was build to commemorate the death of a messenger monk from Sant Pere de Rodes who supposedly was devoured by wolfs here.